Positioned at the boundary of traditional biblical studies, legal history, and literary theory, 'Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation' shows how the legislation of 'Deuteronomy' reflects the struggle of its authors to renew late seventh-century Judean society. more...

This book presents twelve selected investigations of textual composition, interpretation, revision, and transmission. With these studies, Bernard Levinson draws upon the literary forebears of biblical law in cuneiform literature and its reinterpretation in the Second Temple period to provide the horizon of ancient Israelite legal exegesis. The volume... more...

On the one hand, the commentary interprets the final form of the traditional Hebrew text "synchronically" by means of form criticism and modern literary methods. On the other hand, it "diachronically" reconstructs the predecessors of the final form, from its origins in an exodus composition that opposes political domination to the... more...